The Price of Peace and Quiet
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Kyou reflects on the sudden quiet.


**Title:** The Price of Peace and Quiet  
**Author:** Celeste  
**Feedback:** (Yes!) keviesprincess@netscape.net  
**Rating:** PG-13 for yaoi themes and implied NCS  
**Pairings:** Mentions of Haru/Yuki  
**Summary:** Kyou reflects on the sudden quiet.   
**Spoilers:** Not that I know of, really.  
**Disclaimer:** Not my characters, just my sad, twisted scenario. As far as I know, anyway… *sweatdrop*  
**Dedication:** Gift fic for Skye! I would say it's for Christmas, but she doesn't celebrate, so…it's for whatever holiday she wants it to be for. Sorry it's not cheerier, but my muse is a bastard. Um…enjoy?   
**A/N:** Yes, yes, I suck at POV and I should stop it, and Kyou is harder to write than Yuki, so this makes it even worse. But dammit, I needed a gift fic, and this was the best I could do! The usual apologies for plotlessness, redundancy, stupidity, lack-of-plotity. Also apologies for what I did to Haru, but it just kind of came to me one day and this is the weird result. I do bastardize Akito to hell, but I never really liked him, so that makes sense. To me, anyway. Oh, also, sorry about the stupider than usual title. *sweatdrop* I suck at titles.   
**Distribution:** Skye's gift, I guess I'll have to ask her. :P 

~~~~~~~~

I don't really know what happened. 

Actually, that's not true. I never really knew what was going on in the first place. Che. It was all too complicated and hidden and full of that secretive, complex crap (that I hate) for me to be able to see. It was all too weighed down for someone who prefers straightforwardness, for things to just be as they are and nothing else. I never liked things to be veiled, to have meanings and meanings that are hard to see. It seems pretty damn pointless to me. I always believed that if something were to be, it should just be and not have anything frilly attached to it. 

Che. Maybe that was why no one told me what was going on in this damn house. 

So… I never really knew. I never really knew much of what was going on at all.

I just remember…

…I just remember there was silence. 

There was this chilling… 

…painful silence. 

That was strange. Annoying and strange. It pissed me off a lot. 

That's what I really remember. How quiet it was, in the house. Everyone was really quiet. Even that stupid, perverted dog. At first, at first I had no damn clue about what the hell had happened. I didn't know why it was so freaking quiet. 

I was pissed that no one would tell me what had happened. I remember screaming at that damn mouse about it. I yelled at him to stop acting so high and mighty and let the rest of us know what was going on. I told him that even if he thought he was better than everyone he wasn't, that the rest of us had a right to know just as much as he did. He still wouldn't say a word. Not even a word to tell me to shut up. 

But then again, I guess I was never the kind of person that the others told things to. I was just the stupid cat. It wasn't like I really mattered. I was just…unimportant. 

So they didn't tell me. And I never quite knew, exactly. What happened. Just bits and pieces that I picked up, ya know? That's all I know. 

Che. Maybe it's better in the long run. Maybe it would be better for me to never know everything about what happened to my idiot cousin. It's probably all…stupid…when it's put into words. Or something. I would probably be better off in the long run, not knowing exactly what happened to that stupid ox. 

Because he's painfully hollow now. A lot of what I really remember of him isn't there any more. He's really…shattered. Che. He won't even fight me. He won't even make the effort to get up and fight me. 

It's kind of funny, that distant look in his eye is even more distant than it was before. I didn't think it was possible for anyone to be more far off than Haru was. And for some reason, I don't know why, but it's scary too. Scarier than it used to be, anyway. It's kind of funny that that creeps me out, I guess. That the distant look I'm used to is more distant than that. But it's kind of scary, too. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when I look into his eyes and I realize that what I'm looking at isn't really there at all. That look bothers my instincts or something. I think he's far off, somewhere. I don't know where exactly, maybe somewhere nicer. Maybe he's somewhere happy, in his own mind, back before things happened the way they did. 

Or maybe he isn't. 

Maybe he's back in that night, that night when all this shit happened and things changed and they became horribly wrong, and yeah, even more messed up than they were before. 

Akito's a bastard. 

Only he would find a way, only he would find _the_ way to makes things even _worse_ than what we were all used to. It sucked before. It sucked a lot before, but we could deal with it. 

Now, I don't know. It's a lot worse. I didn't think it could get worse than how it used to be, but I was fuckin' wrong about that too, I guess. 

Only he, out of everyone in this whole damn world, only _he_ would be the one who could do the _one_ thing that would completely break two of the people who he's supposed to take care of. 

I don't really understand it. He's the head of the family. He's supposed to, well, he's supposed to make sure things get along all right, isn't he? So then…so…then…why is he always hurting everyone as much as he can? That's not what he's supposed to do! His duty, his damn _job_, is to take care of the family. That's what being the head is all about, isn't it? Why the fuck did he do what he did, then? 

Sure, I guess it's kind of hypocritical of me to say, to accuse him of always hurting people. Especially me, who fights, who is always finding some way to fight with someone. People get hurt in fights, too. 

But… he doesn't even do _that_ the right way. 

He hurts people…he hurts them in ways that they can't heal from. That's not the fucking _point_ of the fight, ya know? It's not how much you can hurt someone. It's not about that. If it were, everyone would just be dead. That's stupid. It doesn't make sense. The point is to prove something. You fight to prove something, not just to hurt someone. If I fought just to hurt someone, I sure as hell wouldn't be picking on Yuki. I mean really, how many damn times have I really hurt that stupid mouse anyway?

It's not about that!

But Akito… I don't know. He hurts people, and I don't get why he does it. I don't understand what the hell he's after. He just does what he does so people get hurt. Like it's fun or somethin'. At least when I…

…when I…

….punch someone…

…I mean, well…they'll get better. It might take a day, or it might take a week or a month, and if I was really mad, I guess I could, if I really, _really_ tried, make it so it would take longer. 

But, they'd get better. 

They'd get better no matter what.

Akito…

…when he hurts someone… he really, _really_ hurts them. He's really fuckin' efficient about it. 

I…

…I don't think Haru will ever get better, to tell you the truth. It's been a long time since that shitty ass day when everything got covered in that annoying silence. It's been a whole lot more than a day or a week or month or a fuckin' year even. More than a _year_. 

It's been a long time.

It's been too goddamn long. 

And that makes me angry. It really pisses me off, you know? How he hurt Haru. How he hurt Haru that day. Why couldn't that bastard just have punched him or somethin'? He couldn't even have just kicked him or thrown him? 

It still would have hurt him! It still would have hurt that stupid ox, if Akito'd punched or kicked or thrown hard enough. Wasn't that the point? I can't try to understand that sicko, but that seems like it was the point, wasn't it? He coulda just kicked him around a little. Haru's pretty tough. He's no Superman or anything, but it's not like a few beatings have ever stopped him. And if Akito wanted to hurt him, he could have just done somethin' like that. Why didn't he just fuckin' punch him?! 

He would have gotten better. That stupid ox…

… he could have gotten better from a punch or a kick or a throw. 

I know, 'cause I've punched him tons of times…kicked him and thrown him too many times to count. 

He always got better. He always got better pretty quick. It only took a day, or a week, at the most. Not ever a month… not even longer. 

Akito…

…he could have just punched him. Or kicked him. Maybe, maybe even thrown him. 

It woulda hurt, ya know. Punches and kicks and throws…they hurt. I've felt enough of 'em to know that they fuckin' hurt. 

But you get better. If it doesn't kill you, you get better.

That's how it is. It hurts, but you get better.

I don't understand why he had to do it the way he did.

I don't get why Akito hurt him the way he did. It just doesn't make any damn sense, is all.

Why'd he have to hurt him...

…in a way…

…where he'll never get better?

And what gets me the angriest about it all, what confuses me the most…

…is why he did it to Haru. 

When you're angry with someone, you go to them about it. You go to them about it and you _tell_ them why the hell you're angry and what's gonna be done about it, and maybe, maybe you fight them. And maybe they get hurt. Or you get hurt. There's a chance of that too. There always is, when there's a fight. 

But Akito didn't give himself that chance, that chance to get hurt too. He made it completely unfair! When you fight, there's a chance that either of you get hurt. But the bastard cheated. He didn't give himself the chance, for one thing. And for another…

…he wasn't even angry…

…he wasn't even fuckin' angry…

…with Haru.

I don't think he was really angry at all, really. 

I don't know why he did it, what he was thinking. I can't even try and imagine what was going on in his head.

But that's not the point. 

The point is, I don't know why the hell he did it to _Haru_.

Why did he do it to Haru, when what he really wanted…

…was to hurt Yuki? 

Sure, Yuki…

….I know that stupid mouse loves Haru. So hurting him woulda hurt Yuki too.

Because he loves him. 

And I know it, too. 

They think no one knows, but they forget, sometimes. I guess they forget that there are animals in this house. Animals that can see and hear and smell a lot better than regular people can. 

I guess when they were together, they forgot about that. It must have been nice. To forget for a while. Even if it did make them kind of stupid.

And careless too. To come back all flushed and smiling and laughing and most of all, covered in ox-that-smells-like-mouse and mouse-that-smells-like-ox…

…it was a little bit careless… 

…when there are other animals in the house too. When there are those of us that can see and smell and hear a lot better than Tohru can. Heck, I think Tohru even kind of noticed. That says a lot. 

But the point is…I guess what I was getting at was, I know that Yuki loves Haru. But I still don't understand why Akito hurt Haru when he was angry at Yuki. 

It doesn't make sense to me. 

I believe, well, I think that if you're mad with someone, you go to them. You let 'em know straight up what you're mad about. Then, you deal with it, whether with fists or words or something else. You face _that person_ and you deal with it. You don't go kicking someone's friend or someone's dog 'cause _he_ pissed you off. What'd his friend or his dog do to you, anyway? And how the heck does that fix what was wrong in the first place?

You don't bring someone else in like that. You don't just hurt someone 'cause they're close to the person you're mad with.

That's cowardly. It's stupid and unmanly and dishonorable.

It's cruel. It's really damn cruel. 

I wouldn't…I never… whenever I was furious with that stupid mouse, I'd want to beat him up a little, want to wipe that superior smirk off his face with my fist. But I never thought of punching Haru for it. Even though I had a better chance of smacking Haru solidly and knowing that it would hurt Yuki if I did… I _never ever_ even thought about it. Not once.

But Akito…

…well, he did more than think about it. 

And now…

…now there are two pairs of eyes that wander around this house, looking distant and hurt. There are two people in this house that don't say much of anything at all, who won't even freaking get up enough energy to fight me. 

They must be pretty damn hurt for that. 

I don't know which one of them hurts more. I really don't. 

Haru…

…it must be the worst thing of all time to have been forced to do what he did by a man who's got the same face as the person he loves the most out of anybody. 

It must be horrible, to look into the face of that precious person who you _love_, who you really fuckin' _love_, and know, _know_ in your head that you love him that much…but have your body hate 'em. Because his face, no matter how much you know you love him, his face is the one who did _that_ to you. That took you forcefully, that hurt you so much you might not ever get better from it. 

It must suck. A lot. 

But then again… I guess, I guess I feel equally as bad for that shitty mouse, for Yuki. I'd never tell him I felt bad for him, but I do. 

Because it was his face. He and Akito… 

They look so damn much alike. 

It's scary.

So I guess I feel bad for him about that.

His face was the one that hurt the person he loved the most. And more than just that. More than just looks. But also _because_ of him. Because Akito was angry with him. 

And Haru paid for it. 

When I look at Yuki now, there's nothing. Not even the high-brow look of superiority that I used to see when he looked back at me. The one that made me want to prove myself to him, to everyone. The one that made me want to show him that he was wrong, that I was just as good as he was, and I'd prove it with a fist in his face. I don't see the look that makes me feel like that in his eyes anymore. It's just…it's just not there. 

There's…

…not much of anything there anymore. 

That's kind of scary.

That's really damn scary. 

And it pisses me off, too. It pisses me off that everything is gone from their eyes. I don't think I would mind his usual, "I'm-so-much-better-than-you-you-stupid-cat" look from that shitty mouse. I know I used to mind, I used to mind a hell of a lot, but now…

…now I wouldn't mind at all. 

Because it's not worth it, ya know?

It's not worth it to try and be better than him when there's nothing left of him inside. You can't fight someone that has nothing at all. You can't fight someone who has empty eyes.

Winning…

…it wouldn't mean anything. And that was always the point. Not to hurt him, not to hurt anyone. But to prove somethin' by winning. 

But I guess now…now, winning just isn't the same. 

It would be empty too, I guess. Like their eyes.

And…

…I don't really like to admit it…

…but I think everyone knows anyway.

I don't like to admit that I'm sad too. 

That I'm too sad to fight him anymore, too. Too sad to even try, sometimes.

Because seeing them both like they are…seeing them like that makes my chest hurt. It makes it hard to concentrate on much of anything but the twisting at my chest, right above my stomach. 

I don't know if I could fight anyone, feeling sick like that. Feeling like I could hurl or die at any second.

Winning wouldn't mean anything, either.

But I wouldn't be able to fight anyone in the first place, feeling like that. And that'd be pretty damn pointless, wouldn't it? 

So now…

…now it's just quiet in the house.

There's no yelling, no 'baka nekos' or 'kuso nezumis' in the halls during in the mornings before school or at night after dinner like there used to be. There're no fights that break out, no sounds of ripping paper doors or that damn perverted dog whining about his precious broken house. 

It's quiet.

I think I'll remember that the most outta everything, for the rest of my life.

I think I'll always remember, no matter what…

…how quiet it is here. 

I may not know…

…I may not know every damn detail of what happened, of what was going on in the first place…

…but I'll remember this silence.

It's so quiet. I gotta remember it. 

This silence.

Akito's a bastard.

**END**


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